scholarly journals Subjectivities of Russian Traders at the Border with China

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Humphrey
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Border Trade ◽  
Anthropological Approach

This paper draws attention to a relatively understudied aspect of cross-border trade: the relation between the subjectivities of traders and the geo-political situation they find themselves in. Among Russian traders at the border with China, discourses on comparative civilisation, memories of mid-twentieth century Soviet dominance and ambivalent appreciation of China’s present riches are integral to everyday practices. It is argued that a theoretical concept of melancholia is helpful to understand the traders’ self-reflective and diverse reactions. At this highly securitised border, in the absence of deep social relations with Chinese partners, the goods purchased, consumed and traded appear as vivid alternative foci for emotions. The article suggests that an anthropological approach to qualia (experiential feelings aroused by material objects) provide a useful heuristic for discussion in this situation.

scholarly journals Material States: China, Russia, and the incorporation of a cross-border indigenous people

2020 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 292-333
Author(s):  
ED PULFORD
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous People ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Heilongjiang Province ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Border Trade ◽  
Longue Duree ◽  
Longue Durée ◽  
Northeast Asian ◽  
Asian People ◽  
New Framework

AbstractThe once-unified indigenous northeast Asian people known as the Hezhe in China and the Nanai in Russia are little-discussed in any discipline, but their long experiences of cross-border division and, more recently, renewed inter-community contact, offer us a new framework for understanding both Chinese and Russian states in the region. As I show here ethnographically, today's Hezhe in northern Heilongjiang province (China) and Nanai in Khabarovsk territory (Russia) live amid the physical furniture of very different polities. But rather than merely reflecting their separation, I argue, these distinct surroundings in fact invite us to consider how the incorporation of Nanai/Hezhe into China and Russia have been constituted in important ways by the uses and flows of material objects. In support of this argument, which draws on recent anthropological insights concerning materiality to push back against existing identity-, landscape-, or production-focused theories of Chinese and Russian power, I examine sources in several languages to develop a longue durée account of materially mediated interactions between Nanai/Hezhe and China and Russia. From early imperial tribute through to socialist command economies to postsocialist cross-border trade, I show how—with notable continuity—states have been embodied in flows and usage of goods, bringing about the incorporation of Hezhe and Nanai into separate realms with immanent material existences.

Calibrating Informal Cross-Border Trade in Southern Africa

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Peberdy ◽  
Jonathan Crush ◽  
Daniel Tevera ◽  
Eugene Campbell ◽  
Ines Raimundo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Southern Africa ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Border Trade

scholarly journals Borders and resilience: Asylum seeker reception at the securitized Finnish-Swedish border

2021 ◽  
pp. 239965442110000
Author(s):  
Eeva-Kaisa Prokkola
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seeker ◽  
Forced Migration ◽  
Border Crossing ◽  
Border Crossings ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Border Controls ◽  
And Control ◽  
Cross Border Cooperation

The past decade has witnessed a shift from “open borders” policies and cross-border cooperation towards heightened border securitization and the building of border walls. In the EU context, since the migration influx of 2015–2016, many Member States have retained the re-instituted Schengen border controls intended to be temporary. Such heightened border securitization has produced high levels of anxiety among various populations and increased societal polarization. This paper focuses on the processes underpinning asylum seeker reception at the re-bordered Finnish-Swedish border and in the Finnish border town of Tornio. The asylum process is studied from the perspective of local authorities and NGO actors active in the everyday reception, care and control practices in the border securitization environment enacted in Tornio in 2015. The analysis highlights how the ‘success’ of everyday reception work at the Tornio border crossing was bound to the historical openness of the border and pre-existing relations of trust and cooperation between different actors at various scales. The paper thus provides a new understanding of the significance of borders and border crossings from the perspective of resilience and highlights some of the paradoxes of border securitization. It notes that although border closures are commonly envisioned as a direct response to forced migration, the everyday practices and capacities of the asylum reception at the Finnish-Swedish border are themselves highly dependent on pre-existing border crossings and cross-border cooperation.

‘The telegraph and the bank’: on the interdependence of global communications and capitalism, 1866–1914

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone M. Müller ◽  
Heidi J.S. Tworek
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
New Markets ◽  
John Maynard Keynes ◽  
Asymmetrical Information ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Modern Capitalism ◽  
Border Trade ◽  
Global Communications ◽  
Social Orders

AbstractThis article uses the example of submarine telegraphy to trace the interdependence between global communications and modern capitalism. It uncovers how cable entrepreneurs created the global telegraph network based upon particular understandings of cross-border trade, while economists such as John Maynard Keynes and John Hobson saw global communications as the foundation for capitalist exchange. Global telegraphic networks were constructed to support extant capitalist systems until the 1890s, when states and corporations began to lay telegraph cables to open up new markets, particularly in Asia and Latin America, as well as for strategic and military reasons. The article examines how the interaction between telegraphy and capitalism created particular geographical spaces and social orders despite opposition from myriad Western and non-Western groups. It argues that scholars need to account for the role of infrastructure in creating asymmetrical information and access to trade that have continued to the present day.

A new transmission pricing approach for the electricity cross-border trade in the ASEAN Power Grid

2007 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Adsoongnoen ◽  
W. Ongsakul ◽  
C. Maurer ◽  
H.-J. Haubrich
Keyword(s):  
Power Grid ◽  
Transmission Pricing ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Border Trade
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